Ever heard someone say, “you haven’t anything popular to happen”? Well, you’re not alone. Next time you’re at the poker table, you might want to hear a little bit of the story of a truly bizarre poker hand: 10, J, Q, K, A, Q, or 5, 4, 3, 2, on the turns. This is the story of one man’s quest to beat the game.

The first thing you need to know is that a 10, J, Q, K, A, Q, on the turn has to offer some resistance. Beyond just being an ace, it is the four cards that make up the “high card” of the hand. Of course, an ace has to be high… A, K, Q, J, or 10, and of course aces are all high. So, the hand has four “high cards.”

But, did you know that after the first round of betting, in order to have a chance of winning, you have to remove an ace or some other card? After all, with 4,3,2,9-card hands out there, the more cards you can fold, the better your odds are of winning.

Is it worth throwing away a good hand to keep your probabilities of winning higher?

Read on:

The Million Dollar Poker Tournament

To give yourself a little edge over the competition, you can make a few simple mathematical decisions.

You will need to play a few million hands for this to be of any use to you. This is totally doable with a bit of practice; you can probably do it in your sleep.

I won a few tournaments and I still haven’t bought into a tournament at as high a level as this. It requires a high degree of skill, and you definitely need to be good at poker. The first thing you need to do is become very successful playing limit poker. Because this is a tournament, no limits are playable.

When I say this, I’m not talking about going on tilt, I’m talking about just keeping calm and sticking to your game plan. When you get hot and frustrated, you will find that your decisions are no longer as sharp as they could be.

So, for the first round or so, I say just sit tight and play your poker, then you can get aggressive if you feel you have the cards to do so.

When you feel comfortable with your hand, then you can add small stakes or blinks. By at least winning a pot, you will have gained a bit of an edge over your opponents.

By late afternoon or so, you should be down to around 6-7 players. Do the math on number of players left; it needs to be around 30% or so for this to be a profitable play session.

By then, you should be ready to start stealing the blinds when you get a good opportunity. Watch the strong hands and puns – they will always try to steal the blind when you have a good hand, and you better watch out for them.

About 30 minutes or so into the session, you should be ready to start taking down pots left and right. You should be reading the action quite well, and have a good idea of what everyone is doing. You can prepare some of the bets in advance, so when the action gets around you, you already have a good idea of how to feel about what to do.

Then all you have to do is to let your strong hand do the rest. It’s really that simple. Learn to read the cards when they come, and then take over the action Dewalive.